Sympathy for Paris Hilton?
The NY Times had an article in today's newspaper (you can read it for free above; registeration required if you haven't already) pointing out how hard it is to get anything back once it's exposed/leaked/hacked in this digital age. There's that Ms. Hilton used a trivial password (her dog's name, "Tinkerbell") and that led to access to her cell phone data through the provider's web site. We all see sites that offer a "secret question" if we forget our password; the hacker easily guessed (or tried until it worked) that the answer to "What is your favorite pet's name?" was tinkerbell, and he/she got access to all of her personal data!

The only reason I'm elaborating on this celebrity hack is to remind myself and you, my friends & family, to be sure to use more elaborate passwords! We've got digital data on so many places on -line (e-mail, banks, school accounts, etc.) that a breach of any one of these could comprimise the security of all! Let's learn the easy way from Ms. Hilton's mistakes, instead of learning the hard way. ;-)

Feb 28th Update: According to an article in today's Wired News, Ms. Hilton may not be completely to blame for her lax password security. Apparently T-Mobile had been attacked previously because they apparently didn't patch their web server software, BEA WebLogic (a competitor of IBM's software that I worked with for several years!) and that helped make their web site vulnerable!
- posted by Larry H @ 11:02 AM